Talk about double victimization.

A federal lawsuit is pending against the Republic School District in Republic, Missouri for failing to provide adequate protection to a female student, who is described as a "7th grade special education student." The lawsuit details how the student was raped twice, each time finding herself admonished for lying to school officials.

According to the lawsuit, the first rape happened in the spring of 2009, and the child reported the assault to her mother, who then notified the school. The student met with school officials several times, during what the suit describes as "intimidating interrogations" and concluded that she was lying about the rape. The child's mother was informed by school officials that she had "recanted" her story while meeting with the school officials, identified as principal Patricia Mithelavage, school counselor Joni Ragain and school resource officer Robert Duncan.

As mentioned previously, the student is described as a "special education" student and her student file contained a psychological profile which identified her as "adverse to conflict," "passive" and 'would forego her own needs and wishes
to satisfy the request of others around so that she can be accepted,' so we can all probably see where this headed.

The girl was then instructed to write a letter of apology, personally deliver it to the boy accused of raping her and was then expelled for the remainder of the year.

The student returned to the school the following fall, and attempted to avoid the male student who assaulted her, but was then raped a second time in February 2010 in the back of the school library. The student didn't report the rape to authorities out of fear of being expelled again, but did tell her mother who reported it to the school authorities, who once again, rejected her claims and stated, "we've already been through this." The mother then took her daughter to the Child Advocacy Center, where she was examined and signs of an assault were present. They were able to obtain DNA which matched the accused.

The boy was arrested and pleaded guilty to unspecified charges. To add insult to injury, the girl/victim was suspended AGAIN by the district for "disrespectful conduct" and "public display of affection." The pending lawsuit contends, "school officials acted recklessly in conscious disregard of and with
deliberate indifference to the risk of [the girl's] safety by failing to
conduct an investigation into her allegations of rape and sexual
assault, by suspending her from school, and by failing to provide her
with any protection from her rapist."

The district responded by stating the lawsuit is "frivolous" and the student "neglected to use reasonable means to protect herself."

I have written and covered celebrity, entertainment and popular culture for over ten years. I also created celebrity web-site Glosslip.com as part of the Blogcritics.org network. When both sites were purchased in 2008 by Technorati.com, she joined their editorial team as Entertainment Editor and then…